Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>The Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), reduced to fewer than 200 individuals across the Indian subcontinent by the early twentieth century, has since recovered into one of Asia’s most cited conservation successes, with Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam now sheltering close to three-quarters of the global population. This recovery has not followed a straight line: sport hunting and habitat conversion gave way, through most of the twentieth century, to organised poaching driven by the illegal horn trade, a pressure that peaked in the early 1990s and has only recently subsided through sustained anti-poaching investment. This study traces the trajectory of that threat and the management response built to counter it, drawing on a synthesis of published literature (Google Scholar, Scopus, ResearchGate, and reports from WWF, Save the Rhino, and the Assam Forest Department) alongside a 90-day field survey across KNP’s four administrative ranges — Kohora, Bagori, Agoratoli, and Bokakhat — carried out in consultation with park officials and frontline forest staff. Poaching incidence between 1965 and 2021 is reconstructed year-wise, alongside two compounding threats to the park’s ecological integrity: periodic disease outbreaks among rhinos and other herbivores, and the annual Brahmaputra floods that submerge up to half the park. The anti-poaching architecture that has driven poaching to historic lows is documented across its pre-entry, post-entry, and post-exit phases, together with the grassland burning, invasive-species removal, wetland desiltation, and artificial-highland construction that sustain rhino habitat despite seasonal flooding. Range-wise field data reveal differences in patrol infrastructure, community engagement, and terrain-specific challenges that shape conservation outcomes across the park. The findings support an integrated model — combining law enforcement, habitat management, and community participation — as the basis for sustaining Kaziranga’s rhino population and for informing rhino conservation in comparable floodplain landscapes.</p>